Dem
47
GOP
53
Former representative Colin Allred (D) seemed like a strong U.S. Senate candidate to us. He's charismatic, Black, a former football player in a state where football is religion, has a moderate voting record, and has name recognition. We figured he was the likeliest person to claim the Democratic nomination, and then, if crazypants Ken Paxton were to claim the GOP nod over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), all bets were off.
Shows what we know. Recent polling showed Allred losing ground to the other major Democrat in the race, state Rep. James Talarico. And a poll released late last week showed Allred in fourth place, were Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) to enter the race. Well, she did jump in yesterday, and so Allred promptly jumped out, and said he will run in TX-33, which is one of the handful of still-blue Texas districts, and which covers some of Dallas and the Dallas suburbs that Allred used to represent in Congress. Allred's decision, in turn, caused Rep. Marc Veasey (D), who currently represents TX-33, but was thinking about moving over to TX-30 (Crockett's current district) to give up on the House entirely, and to announce he will run for Tarrant County judge, which, in Texas, is a role with both judicial and administrative responsibilities. Frankly, if we were him, we'd rather be a judge, too. No need to maintain two residences, no need to risk having to talk to Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX).
So, a pretty high-profile game of musical chairs leaves Crockett as one of the two heavyweight contenders for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate. Undoubtedly, she will attract a sizable percentage of the Black vote, which is a good start. However, Texas is not Alabama or Mississippi, and only about 12% of the population is Black. That's not a huge constituency, and the idea of two different candidates relying on 12% of the population as their "base" is undoubtedly a big part of what caused Allred to decide the writing was on the wall.
Crockett's biggest ace in the hole is not affinity politics, however, it's her ability to accrue earned media. She's very good at sound bites, and very good at bon mots, and has been one of the faces of the Donald Trump resistance. The various news networks (mind you, a category that does not include Fox, OAN, or Newsmax) love, love, love to have her on because she's fiery and provocative.
Crockett is also very progressive. She is often listed as a member of The Squad, although she prefers not to be included in that grouping. Since the New York City mayoral election, and even more so since the recent special election result in Tennessee, we've had a number of e-mails from readers asserting that middle-of-the-road candidates are not what voters are looking for these days, and that even in red states, voters want big change, and candidates with big ideas.
This may be so, though we must note that outspoken progressive Aftyn Behn did lose that election in Tennessee, and that most of the anti-Behn campaigning, particularly at the end, focused on lefty things she said that did not sit well with many Tennesseans. Further, if progressive policies ARE what red-state voters are looking for, well, Crockett isn't doing a great job of enunciating which progressive policies she stands for. We know at least half a dozen progressive planks that Zohran Mamdani put in his platform. But nearly everything that Crockett gets attention for is slings and arrows fired in the direction of Donald Trump, or Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). This is not to say that Crockett does not have progressive policy positions she can/will run on, nor that she can't develop a platform that she can hammer on at every rally, in every speech, and during every media hit. However, what we are saying is that we really don't know what her signature issues are. And if we don't know, given how closely we follow this general subject, it probably means that most voters don't know, either. So, we'd say she has some work to do.
Meanwhile, because Crockett is Black, female and progressive, while Talarico is white, male and more moderate, we suspect there will be much temptation to frame this as Hillary (Talarico) vs. Bernie (Crockett), Part 837. We don't think it's that simple. Talarico is less outspoken than Crockett, but he has embraced some very center-left/lefty policy positions, including support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and for Obamacare, and staunch opposition to limits on reproductive choice and to state-sponsored religion (he first gained attention for his criticism of "post the Ten Commandments in classrooms" laws). He also has some pretty hippie-dippy things on his pre-politics résumé, like working for Teach for America for several years and serving as an executive officer for Reasoning Mind, a nonprofit focusing on bringing technology to low-income classrooms.
At the same time, Talarico is very openly and devoutly religious. His grandfather was a Baptist preacher, and he himself has delivered guest sermons before various congregations. He also has a degree in divinity, from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. That's to go along with his B.A. in Education from the University of Texas and his Master's in Education from a little school in Massachusetts called Harvard. In other words, Talarico is an educated man.
So, when we look at Talarico, we don't see Joe Biden or Bill Clinton; we see Jimmy Carter. And our guess is that basic "fit" will ultimately carry the day for the candidate. Texas Democrats want a U.S. Senator so badly they can taste it. And Democrats across the country want the Senate back so badly they would give their left arms to make that happen. If the choice is between "pretty lefty and VERY religious" and "VERY lefty and pretty religious," we would guess that a lot of Texas voters are going to choose the former for purely tactical reasons. In any case, we're going to be watching closely, along with anyone and everyone else interested in politics. Because again, if Paxton is the Republican nominee, this seat is definitely winnable for the blue team. (Z)